Still early in January, a few days after his Majesty's return to Potsdam, three high Official gentlemen, Count Fink van Finkenstein, old Tutor to the Prince, Grumkow and General Borck announce themselves one morning; "Have a pressing message from the King to her Majesty." [Wilhelmina, i. 180.] Queen is astonished;expecting anything sooner.--"This regards me, I have a dreading!"shuddered Wilhelmina to Mamma. "No matter," said the Queen, shrugging her shoulders; "one must have firmness; and that is not what I shall want;"--and her Majesty went into the Audience-chamber, leaving Wilhelmina in such tremors.
Finkenstein, a friendly man, as Borck too is, explains to her Majesty, "That they three have received each a Letter overnight,--Letter from the King, enjoining in the FIRST place 'silence under pain of death;' in the SECOND place, apprising them that he, the King, will no longer endure her Majesty's disobedience in regard to the marriage of his Daughter, but will banish Daughter and Mother 'to Oranienburg,' quasi-divorce, and outer darkness, unless there be compliance with his sovereign will; THIRDLY, that they are accordingly to go, all three, to her Majesty, to deliver the enclosed Royal Autograph [which Finkenstein presents], testifying what said sovereign will is, and on the above terms expect her Majesty's reply;"--as they have now sorrowfully done, Finkenstein and Borck with real sorrow; Grumkow with the reverse of real.
Sovereign will is to the effect: "Write to England one other time, Will you at once marry, or not at once; Yea or No? Answer can be here within a fortnight; three weeks, even in case of bad winds.
If the answer be not Yea at once; then you, Madam, you at once choose Weissenfels or Schwedt, one or the other,--under what penalties you know; Oranienburg and worse!"Here is a crisis. But her Majesty did not want firmness. "Write to England? Yes, willingly. But as to Weissenfels and Schwedt, whatever answer come from England,--Impossible!" steadily answers her Majesty. There was much discourse, suasive, argumentative;Grumkow "quoting Scripture on her Majesty, as the Devil can on occasion," says Wilhelmina. Express Scriptures, Wives, be obedient to your husbands, and the like texts:
but her Majesty, on the Scripture side too, gave him as good as he brought. "Did not Bethuel the son of Milcah, [Genesis xxiv.
14-58.] when Abraham's servant asked his daughter in marriage for young Isaac, answer, We will call the damsel and inquire of her mouth. And they called Rebecca, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go."
Scripture for Scripture, Herr von Grumkow! "Wives must obey their husbands; surely yes. But the husbands are to command things just and reasonable. The King's procedure is not accordant with that law. He is for doing violence to my Daughter's inclination, and rendering her unhappy for the rest of her days;--will give her a brutal debauchee," fat Weissenfels, so describable in strong language; "a younger brother, who is nothing but the King of Poland's Officer; landless, and without means to live according to his rank. Or can it be the State that will profit from such a marriage? If they have a Household, the King will have to support it.--Write to England; Yes; but whatever the answer of England, Weissenfels never! A thousand times sooner see my child in her grave than hopelessly miserable!" Here a qualm overtook her Majesty; for in fact she is in an interesting state, third month of her time: "I am not well; You should spare me, Gentlemen, in the state I am in.--I do not accuse the King," concluded she:
"I know," hurling a glance at Grumkow, "to whom I owe all this;"--and withdrew to her interior privacies; reading there with Wilhelmina "the King's cruel Letter," and weeping largely, though firm to the death. [Wilhelmina, i. 179-182. Dubourgay has nothing,--probably had heard nothing, there being "silence under pain of death" for the moment.]
What to do in such a crisis? Assemble the Female Parliament, for one thing: good Madam Finkenstein (old Tutor's wife), good Mamsell Bulow, Mamsell Sonsfeld (Wilhelmina's Governess), and other faithful women:--well if we can keep away traitresses, female spies that are prowling about; especially one "Ramen," a Queen's soubrette, who gets trusted with everything, and betrays everything; upon whom Wilhelmina is often eloquent. Never was such a traitress; took Dubourgay's bribe, which the Queen had advised;and, all the same, betrays everything,--bribe included. And the Queen, so bewitched, can keep nothing from her. Female Parliament must, take precautions about the Ramen!--For the rest, Female Parliament advises two things: 1. Pressing Letter to England;that of course, written with the eloquence of despair: and then 2. That in ease of utter extremity, her Majesty "pretend to fall ill." That is Crisis First; and that is their expedient upon it.
Letter goes to England, therefore; setting forth the extremity of strait, and pinch: "Now or never, O my Sister Caroline!" Many such have gone, first and last; but this is the strongest of all.
Nay the Crown-Prince too shall write to his Aunt of England:
